Draft media law a step backward for Burma

Bangkok, March 1, 2013--Draft legislation designed to govern
the media in Burma threatens to reverse fragile press freedom gains recently achieved
under President Thein Sein's democratic reform program, the Committee to
Protect Journalists said today.

The draft Press Law Bill (2013)bans reporting on several vague topics, including any news or
commentary critical of the military-drafted 2008 constitution, and allows for
six-month prison sentences for failing to register news publications with the
government, according to a copy of the legislation published on Wednesday in
the daily government-owned newspaper New Light of Myanmar.

The draft bill will soon be deliberated by the country's
military-influenced parliament. It was drawn up by the Ministry of Information
without input from independent press groups, according to news
reports. The draft law is designed to replace the 1962 Printers and
Publishers Registration Act, legislation that was frequently used to harass and
imprison journalists under the previous ruling military junta.

The draft law also calls for the appointment of a new
"registration official," who will be charged with issuing publishing licenses
and monitoring the media for violations of new censorship guidelines. According
to news
reports, the law's proposed guidelines prohibit the publication of any news
that could "disturb the rule of law," "incite unrest," or "violate the constitution
and other existing laws."

"If passed in its current form, the draft law will
essentially replace Burma's old censorship regime with a similarly repressive
new one," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative.
"Banning news topics and legalizing the jailing of journalists is utterly
inconsistent with the press freedom guarantees that authorities vowed the new
law would promote. We urge lawmakers to amend this draft in a way that
protects, and not restricts, press freedom."

News reports citing local media groups raised concerns that
the new "registration official" created under the draft law will be empowered
to censor and punish local media. Last August, the government announced an end
to its decades-old pre-publication
censorship regime. In January, the government's Press Scrutiny and
Registration Division censorship body was formally abolished.

Until now, all private news publications in Burma have been
forced to publish as weeklies rather than dailies to accommodate the
government's time-consuming pre-censorship requirements, a restriction that
will officially
be lifted on April 1. However, local journalists and editors have
complained that existing restrictive laws like the 2004 Electronics Act and
2000 Internet Act, both of which allow for prison sentences for violations,
have engendered more self-censorship since the end of official pre-publication
censorship.